Chapter VIII: Front Matter (8)

Balzac seized upon the phrase, "The Human Comedy," just as he seized upon anything which he could weave into the fabric he was constructing. And so finally came his formal announcement that he was to write the entire life of man, and picture every possible aspect of humanity, in a hundred books to be known as "La Comedie Humaine." It was a conception as great and daring as the plan of Pliny to write out all human knowledge, or the ambition of Newton as shown in the "Principia," or the works of Baron von Humboldt as revealed in the "Cosmos," or the idea of Herbert Spencer as bodied forth in the "Synthetic Philosophy."

* * * * *

All the time Balzac was looking forward to when he and Madame Hanska would next meet, or back to the meeting that had just taken place. Each year, for a few short, sweet days, they met in Switzerland or at some appointed place in Italy or France. Sometimes Monsieur Hanska was there and sometimes not. That worthy gentleman always seemed to feel a certain gratification in the thought that his wife was so attractive to the great author of the "Droll Stories," the only Balzac book he had really ever read.

That he did not even guess their true relation is very probable; he knew that his wife was something of a writer, and he was satisfied when he was told that she was helping Balzac in his literary undertakings. That he was not compelled to read the joint production, and pass judgment on it, gave him so much pleasure that he never followed up the clue.

On January Fifth, Eighteen Hundred Forty-two, Balzac received from Madame Hanska an envelope lined with ominous black: a mourning-envelope. He seized it with joy--placed it to his lips and then pressed it to his heart. Monsieur Hanska was dead--dead--very dead--he had vacated the preserve--gone--flown--departed, dead!

Balzac sat down and wrote a sham letter of condolence to the bereaved widow, and asked permission to go at once and console her. Had it been De Berney he would have gone, but with Madame Hanska he had first to obtain permission.

So he waited for her reply.

Her answer was strangely cold: Madame was in sore distress--children sick, peasants dissatisfied, business complications and so forth.

Balzac had always supposed that Monsieur Hanska was the one impediment that stood in the way of the full, complete and divine mating. Probably Madame thought so, too, until the time arrived, and then she discovered that she had gotten used to having her lover at a distance. She was thus able to manage him. But to live with him all the time--ye gods, was it possible!

The Madame had so long managed her marital craft in storm and stress, holding the bark steadily in the eye of the wind, that now the calm had come she did not know what to do, and Balzac in his gay-painted galley could not even paddle alongside.

She begged for time to settle her affairs. In three months they met in Switzerland. Madame was in deep mourning, and Balzac, not to be outdone, had an absurdly large and very black band on his hat. With Madame was her daughter, a fine young woman of twenty, whom the mother always now kept close to her, for prudential reasons. The daughter must have been pretty good quality, for she called Balzac, "My Fat Papa," and Balzac threatens Madame that he will run away with the daughter if the marriage is not arranged, and quickly too.

But Madame will not wed--not yet--she is afraid that marriage will dissolve her beautiful dream. In the meantime, she advances Balzac a large amount of money, several hundred thousand francs, to show her sincerity, and the money Balzac is to use in furnishing a house in Paris, where they will live as soon as they are married.

Balzac buys a snug little house and furnishes it with costly carved furniture, bronzes, rugs and old masters.

He waits patiently, or not, according to his mood, amid his beautiful treasures. And still Madame would not relinquish the sweet joys of widowhood.

In a year Madame Hanska arrives with her daughter. They are delighted with the house, and remain for a month, when pressing business in Poland calls them hence. Balzac accompanies them a hundred miles, and then goes back home to his "Human Comedy."

The years pass very much as they did when Monsieur Hanska was alive, only they miss that gentleman, having nobody now but the public to bamboozle, and the public having properly sized up the situation has become very apathetic--busy looking for morsels more highly spiced. Who in the world cares about what stout, middle-aged widows do, anyway!

* * * * *

Occasionally, in letters to Madame Hanska, Balzac referred to Madame De Berney. This seems to have caused Madame Hanska once to say, "Why do you so often refer to ancient history and tell me of that motherly body who once acted as your nurse, comparing me with her?"

To this Balzac replies: "I apologize for comparing you with Madame De Berney--she was what she was, and you are what you are. Great souls are always individual--Madame De Berney was a great and lofty spirit, and no one can ever take her place. I apologize for comparing you with her."

Madame De Berney led Balzac; Madame Hanska ruled him. Madame Hanska was one who alternately beckoned and pursued. Without her Balzac could not have gone on. She held him true to his literary course, and without her he must surely have fallen a victim of arrested energy. She demanded a daily accounting from the mill of his mind. She supplied both goad and greens.

And more than that she sapped his life-forces and robbed him of his red corpuscles; so that, before he was fifty, he was old, worn-out, undone, with an excess of lime in his bones.

Literary creation makes a terrific tax on vitality. Ideas do not flow until the pulse goes above eighty, and this means the rapid breaking down of tissue. The man who writes two hours daily, and writes well, can not do much else. He is like the racehorse--do not expect the record-breaker to pull a plow all day, and go fast heats in the evening. Balzac was the most tremendous worker in a literary way the world has ever seen. He doubtless made mistakes in his life's course, but the wonder is, that he did not make more. He was constantly absorbed in what Theophile Gautier has called "the Balzac Universe," looking after the characters he had created, seeing to it that they acted consistently, pulling the wires, supplying them conversation, dialogue, plot and counterplot, and amid all this bustle and confusion bringing out a perfect story. And still sanely to do the work of the workaday world was a miracle indeed! The man had the strength of Hercules, but even physical strength has its penalty--it seduces one to over-exertion. The midnight brain is a bad thing to cultivate, especially when reinforced with much coffee. Balzac was growing stout; physical exercise was difficult. Dark lines were growing under his eyes. In his letters to Madame Hanska he tells how he is taking treatment from the doctor, and that he suffers from asthma and aneurism of the heart.

His eyes are failing him so he can not see to write by lamplight.

Madame Hanska now becomes alarmed. She thinks she can win him back to life. She begs him to come to Poland at once, and they will be married.

Balzac at once begins the journey to the Hanska country home. The excitement and change of scene evidently benefited him. Great plans were being made for the future.

The wedding occurred on March Fourteenth, Eighteen Hundred Fifty.

Balzac was a sick man. The couple arrived back in Paris, with Balzac leaning heavily on his wife's arm. Chaos thundered in his ears; his brain reeled with vertigo; dazzling lights appeared in the darkness; and in the sunshine he saw only confused darkness.

Balzac died August Seventeenth, Eighteen Hundred Fifty, aged fifty-one, and Pere-la-Chaise tells the rest.

Said Victor Hugo:

The candle scarcely illumined the magnificent Pourbus, the
magnificent Holbein, on the walls. The bust of marble was like the
ghost of the man who was to die. I asked to see Monsieur De Balzac.
We crossed a corridor and mounted a staircase crowded with vases,
statues and enamels. Another corridor--I saw a door that was open. I
heard a sinister noise--a rough and loud breathing. I was in
Balzac's bedchamber. The bed was in the middle of the room: Balzac,
supported on it, as best he might be, by pillows and cushions taken
from the sofa. I saw his profile, which was like that of Napoleon.
An old sick-nurse and a servant of the house stood on either side of
the bed. I lifted the counterpane and took the hand of Balzac. The
nurse said to me, "He will die about dawn."

His death has smitten Paris. Some months ago he came back into
France. Feeling that he was dying, he wished to see again his
native land--as on the eve of a long journey, one goes to one's
mother to kiss her. Sometimes, in the presence of the dead--when the
dead are illustrious--one feels, with especial distinctness, the
heavenly destiny of that Intelligence which is called Man. It passes
over the Earth to suffer and be purified.

FENELON AND MADAME GUYON

Some time before the marriage of my daughter, I had become
acquainted with the Abbe Fenelon, and the family into which she had
entered being among his friends, I had the opportunity of seeing him
there many times. We had conversations on the subject of the inner
life, in which he offered many objections to me. I answered him with
my usual simplicity. He gave me opportunity to thoroughly explain to
him my experiences. The difficulties he offered, only served to make
clear to him the root of my sentiments; therefore no one has been
better able to understand them than he. This it is which, in the
sequel, has served for the foundation of the persecution raised
against him, as his answers to the Bishop of Meaux have made known
to all persons who have read them without prejudice.

--_Autobiography of Madame Guyon_

I have been reading the "Autobiography of Madame Guyon." All books that live are autobiographies, for the reason that no writer is interesting save as he writes about himself. All literature is a confession; there is only one kind of ink, and it is red. Some say the autobiography of Benjamin Franklin is the most interesting book written by an American. It surely has one mark of greatness--indiscretion. It tells of things inconsequential, irrelevant and absurd: for instance, the purchase of a penny-loaf by a moon-faced youth with outgrown trousers, who walked up Market Street, in the city of Philadelphia, munching his loaf, and who saw a girl sitting in a doorway, laughing at him.

What has that to do with literature? Everything, for literature is a human document, and the fact that he of the moon-face got even with the girl who laughed at him by going back and marrying her gives us a picture not soon forgotten.

Everybody is entertaining when he writes about himself, because he is discussing a subject in which he is vitally interested--whether he understands the theme is another thing. The fact that Madame Guyon did not understand her theme does not detract from the interest in her book: it rather adds to it--she is so intensely prejudiced. Franklin was the very king of humorists, and in humor Madame Guyon was a pauper.

There is not a smile in the whole big book from cover to cover--not a smile, save those the reader brings to bear.

Madame Guyon lays bare her heart, but she does it by indirection. In this book she keeps her left hand well informed of what her right hand is doing. Her multi-masked ego tells things she must have known, but which she didn't know she knew, otherwise she would not have told us. We get the truth by reading between the lines. The miracle is that this book should have passed for a work of deep religious significance, and served as a textbook for religious novitiates for three centuries.

Madame Guyon was a woman of intellect, damned with a dower of beauty; sensitive, alert, possessing an impetuous nature that endeavored to find its gratification in religion. Born into a rich family, and marrying a rich man, unkind Fate gave her time for introspection, and her mind became morbid through lack of employment for her hands.

Work would have directed her emotions to a point where they would have been useful, but for the lack of which she was feverish, querulous, impulsive--always looking for offense, and of course finding it. Her pride was colossal, and the fact that it found form in humility must have made her a sore trial to her friends.

The confessional seems a natural need of humanity; however, when an introspective hypochondriac acquires the confessional habit, she is a pest to a good priest and likely to be a prey to a bad one.

A woman in this condition of mind confesses sins she never committed, and she may commit sins of which she is unaware.

The highly emotional, unappreciated, misunderstood woman, noisily bearing her cross alone, is a type well known to the pathologist. In modern times when she visits a dentist's office the doctor hastily summons his assistant; like unto the Prince of Pilsen, who, in the presence of the strenuous widow, seizes his friend convulsively and groans: "Don't leave me--don't leave me! I am up against it."

This type of woman is never commonplace--she is the victim of her qualities; and these qualities in the case of Madame Guyon were high ambition, great intellect, impelling passion, self-reliance. Had she been less of a woman she would have been more.

She thinks mostly of herself, and intense selfishness is apparent even in her humility. The tragedy of her life lay in that she had a surplus of time and a plethora of money, and these paved the way for introspection and fatty enlargement of the ego. Let her tell her own story:

My God: Since you wish me to write a life so worthless and
extraordinary as mine, and the omissions I made in the former have
appeared to you too considerable to leave it in that state, I wish
with all my heart, in order to obey you, to do what you desire of
me.

I was born, according to some accounts, on Easter Even, Thirteenth
of April--although my baptism was not until the Twenty-fourth of
May--in the year Sixteen Hundred Forty-eight, of a father and mother
who made profession of very great piety, particularly my father, who
had inherited it from his ancestors; for one might count, from a
very long time, almost as many saints in his family as there were
persons who composed it.

I was born, then, not at the full time, for my mother had such a
terrible fright that she brought me into the world in the eighth
month, when it is said to be almost impossible to live.

I no sooner received life than I was on the point of losing it, and
dying without baptism.

My life was only a tissue of ills. At two and a half years, I was
placed at the Ursulines, where I remained some time. Afterwards they
took me away. My mother, who did not much love girls, neglected me
and abandoned me too much to the care of women who neglected me
also: yet you, O my God, protected me, for accidents were
incessantly happening to me, occasioned by my extreme vivacity; I
fell. A number of accidents happened to me which I omit for brevity.

I was then four years old, when Madame the Duchess of Montbason came
to the Benedictines. As she had much friendship for my father, she
asked him to place me in that House when she would be there, because
I was a great diversion to her. I was always with her, for she much
loved the exterior God had given me. I do not remember to have
committed any considerable faults in that house. I saw there only
good examples, and as my natural disposition was toward good, I
followed it when I found nobody to turn me aside from it. I loved to
hear talk about God, to be at church, and to be dressed as a nun.
One day I imagined that the terror they put me into of Hell was only
to intimidate me because I was very bright, and I had a little
archness to which they gave the name of cleverness.

I wished to go to confession without saying anything to any one, but
as I was very small, the mistress of the boarders carried me to
confession and remained with me. They listened to me. She was
astonished to hear that I first accused myself of having thoughts
against the faith, and the confessor beginning to laugh, asked me
what they were. I told him that I had up to now been in doubt about
Hell: that I had imagined my mistress spoke to me of it only to make
me good, but I no longer doubted. After my confession I felt an
indescribable fervor, and even one time I experienced a desire to
endure martyrdom.

I can not help here noting the fault mothers commit who, under
pretext of devotion or occupation, neglect to keep their daughters
with them; for it is not credible that my mother, so virtuous as she
was, would have thus left me, if she had thought there was any harm
in it.

I must also condemn those unjust preferences that they show for one
child over another, which produce division and the ruin of families,
while equality unites the hearts and entertains charity. Why can not
fathers and mothers understand, and all persons who wish to guide
youth, the evil they do, when they neglect the guidance of the
children, when they lose sight of them for a long time and do not
employ them?

* * * * *

You know, O my Love, that the fear of your chastisement has never
made much impression either on my intellect or upon my heart. Fear
of having offended you caused all my grief, and this was such that
it seemed to me, though there should be neither Paradise nor Hell, I
should always have had the same fear of displeasing you. You know
that even after my faults your caresses were a thousand times more
insupportable than your rigors, and I would have a thousand times
chosen Hell rather than displease you.

O God, it was then not for you alone I used to behave well, since I
ceased to do so because they no longer had any consideration for me.

If I had known how to make use of the crucifying conduct that you
maintained over me, I should have made good progress, and, far from
going astray, that would have made me return to you.

I was jealous of my brother, for on every occasion I remarked the
difference my mother made between him and me. However, he behaved
always right, and I always wrong. My mother's servant-maids paid
their court by caressing my brother and ill-treating me.

It is true I was bad, for I had fallen back into my former defects
of telling lies and getting in a passion; with all these defects I
nevertheless willingly gave alms, and I much loved the poor. I
assiduously prayed to you, O my God, and I took pleasure in hearing
you well spoken of. I do not doubt you will be astonished, Sir, by
such resistance, and by so long a course of inconstancy; so many
graces, so much ingratitude; but the sequel will astonish you still
more, when you shall see this manner of acting grow stronger with my
age, and that reason, far from correcting so irrational a procedure,
has served only to give more force and more scope to my sins.

It seemed, O my God, that you doubled your graces as my ingratitude
increased. There went on in me what goes on in the siege of towns.
You were besieging my heart, and I thought only of defending it
against your attacks. I put up fortifications to that miserable
place, redoubling each day my iniquities to hinder you from taking
it.

When it seemed you were about to be victorious over this ungrateful
heart, I made a cross-battery; I put up barriers to arrest your
bounties and to hinder the course of your graces. It required
nothing less than you to break them down, O my divine Love, who by
your sacred fire were more powerful than even death, to which my
sins have so often reduced me.

My father, seeing that I was grown, placed me for Lent with the
Ursulines, in order that I should have my first communion at Easter,
when I should complete eleven years of age. He placed me in the
hands of his daughter, my very dear sister, who redoubled her cares
that I might perform this action with all possible preparation. I
thought only, O my God, of giving myself to you once for all.

I often felt the combat between my good inclinations and my evil
habits. I even performed some penance. As I was almost always with
my sister, and the boarders of the grown class with whom I was,
although I was very far from their age, were very reasonable, I
became very reasonable with them.

It was surely a murder to bring me up ill, for I had a natural
disposition much inclined to good, and I loved good things.

We subsequently came to Paris, where my vanity increased. Nothing
was spared to bring me out. I paraded a vain beauty; I thirsted to
exhibit myself and to flaunt my pride. I wished to make myself loved
without loving anybody. I was sought for by many persons who seemed
good matches for me; but you, O my God, who would not consent to my
ruin, did not permit things to succeed.

My father discovered difficulties that you yourself made spring up
for my salvation. For if I had married those persons, I should have
been extremely exposed, and my vanity would have had opportunity for
displaying itself. There was a person who sought me in marriage for
some years, whom my father for family reasons had always refused.

His manners were a little distasteful to my vanity, yet the fear
they had I should leave the country, and the great wealth of this
gentleman, led my father, in spite of all his own objections and
those of my mother, to accept him for me. It was done without my
being told, on the vigil of Saint Francis de Sales, on the
Twenty-eighth of January, Sixteen Hundred Sixty-four, and they even
made me sign the articles of marriage without telling me what they
were.

Although I was well pleased to be married, because I imagined
thereby I should have full liberty, and that I should be delivered
from the ill-treatment of my mother, which doubtless I brought on
myself by want of docility, you, however, O my God, had quite other
views, and the state in which I found myself afterwards frustrated
my hopes, as I shall hereafter tell. Although I was well pleased to
be married, I nevertheless continued all the time of my engagement,
and even long after my marriage, in extreme confusion.

I did not see my betrothed till two or three days before the
marriage. I caused masses to be said all the time I was engaged, to
know your will, O my God, for I desired to do it at least in that.
Oh, goodness of my God, to suffer me at that time, and to permit me
to pray with as much boldness as if I had been one of your
friends!--I who had treated you as if your greatest enemy!

The joy at this marriage was universal in our town, and in this
rejoicing I was the only person sad. I could neither laugh like the
others, nor even eat, so oppressed was my heart. I know not the
cause of my sadness; but, my God, it was as if a presentiment you
were giving me of what should befall me.

Hardly was I married when the recollection of my desire to be a nun
came to overwhelm me.

All those who came to compliment me the day after my marriage could
not help rallying me because I wept bitterly, and I said to them,
"Alas! I had once so desired to be a nun; why am I now married; and
by what fatality is this happened to me?"

I was no sooner at home with my new husband than I clearly saw that
it would be for me a house of sorrow. I was obliged to change my
conduct, for their manner of living was very different from that in
my father's house. My mother-in-law, who had been long time a
widow, thought only of saving, while in my father's house we lived
in an exceedingly noble manner. Everything was showy and everything
on a liberal scale, and all my husband and mother-in-law called
extravagance, and I called respectability, was observed there.

I was very much surprised at this change, and the more so as my
vanity would rather have increased than cut down expenditure. I was
fifteen years of age--in my sixteenth year--when I was married.

My astonishment greatly increased when I saw that I must give up
what I had with so much trouble acquired. At my father's house we
had to live with much refinement, learn to speak correctly. All I
said was there applauded and made much of. Here I was not listened
to, except to be contradicted and to be blamed. If I spoke well they
said it was to read them a lesson. If any one came and a subject was
under discussion, while my father used to make me speak, here, if I
wished to express my opinion, they said it was to dispute, and they
ignominiously silenced me, and from morning to night they chided me.
They led my husband to do the same, and he was only too well
disposed for it.

I should have a difficulty in writing these sort of things to you,
which can not be done without wounding charity, if you had not
forbidden me to omit anything, and if you had not thus absolutely
commanded me to explain everything, and give all particulars. One
thing I ask, before going further, which is, not to regard things
from the side of the creature, for this would make persons appear
more faulty than they were; for my mother-in-law was virtuous and my
husband was religious and had no vice.

My mother-in-law conceived such a hostility to me that, in order to
annoy me, she made me do the most humiliating things; for her temper
was so extraordinary, from not having conquered it in her youth,
that she could not live with any one. I was thus made the victim of
her tempers.

Her whole occupation was continually to thwart me, and she inspired
her son with the same sentiments.

They insisted that persons far beneath me should take precedence, in
order to annoy me. My mother, who was very sensitive on the point of
honor, could not endure this; and when she learned it from
others--for I never said anything of it--she found fault with me,
thinking I did it from not knowing how to maintain my rank, that I
had no spirit, and a thousand other things of this kind.

I dared not tell how I was situated, but I was dying of vexation,
and what increased it still more was the recollection of the persons
who had sought me in marriage, the difference of their temper and
their manner of acting, the love and esteem they had for me, and
their gentleness and politeness: this was very hard for me to bear.

My mother-in-law incessantly spoke to me disparagingly of my father
and my mother, and I never went to see them but I had to endure this
disagreeable talk on my return. On the other hand, my mother
complained of me that she did not see me often enough--she said I
did not love her.

What increased still more my crosses was that my mother related to
my mother-in-law the trouble I had given her in my childhood, so
that the moment I spoke they reproached me with this, and told me I
was a wicked character.

My husband wished me to remain all day in the room of my
mother-in-law, without being allowed to go to my own apartment; I
had not therefore a moment for seclusion or breathing a little.

She spoke disparagingly of me to every one, hoping thereby to
diminish the esteem and affection each had for me, so that she put
insults upon me in the presence of the best society. She discovered
the secret of extinguishing the vivacity of my mind and making me
become quite dull, so that I could no more be recognized. Those who
had seen me before used to say: "What! is that the person who passed
for being clever? She does not say two words. It is a pretty
picture."

For crown of affliction I had a maid they had given me, who was
quite in their interest. She kept me in sight like a duenna, and
strangely ill-treated me.

When I went out, the valets had orders to give an account of all I
did. It was then that I commenced to eat the bread of tears. If I
was at table they did things to me that covered me with confusion.

I had no one with whom to share my grief. I wished to tell something
of it to my mother, and that caused me so many new crosses that I
resolved to have no other confidante of my vexations than myself. It
was not through harshness that my husband treated me so, but from
his hasty and violent temper; for he loved me even passionately.
What my mother-in-law was continually telling him irritated him.

Such was my married life, rather that of a slave than of a free
person. To increase my disgrace I discovered, four months after my
marriage, that my husband was gouty. This disease caused me many
real crosses both without and within. That year he twice had gout
six weeks at a time, and it again seized him shortly after, much
more severely. At last he became so indisposed that he did not leave
his room, nor often even his bed, which he ordinarily kept many
months.

I believe that, but for his mother and that maid of whom I have
spoken, I should have been very happy with him; for as to hastiness,
there is hardly a man who has not plenty of it, and it is the duty
of a reasonable woman to put up with it quietly without increasing
it by sharp answers. You made use of all these things, O my God, for
my salvation.

I became pregnant with my first child. During this time I was
greatly petted as far as the body went, and my crosses were in some
degree less severe thereby.

I was so indisposed that I would have excited the compassion of the
most indifferent. Moreover, they had such a great wish to have
children, that they were very apprehensive lest I should miscarry.

Yet towards the end they were less considerate to me, and once, when
my mother-in-law had treated me in a very shocking manner, I was so
malicious as to feign a colic in order to alarm them in my turn;
because so anxious were they to have children, for my husband was
the only son, and my mother-in-law was rich, could have heirs
through him alone.

* * * * *

This first confinement greatly improved my appearance, and in
consequence made me more vain, for although I would not have been
willing to add art to Nature, yet I was very complaisant to myself.

I was glad to be looked at, and, far from avoiding occasions for it,
I went to promenades; rarely however, and when I was in the streets,
I took off my mask from vanity, and my gloves to show my hands.
Could there be greater silliness? When I had thus been carried away,
which happened often enough, I wept inconsolably; but that did not
correct me. I also sometimes went to a ball, where I displayed my
vanity in dancing.

I did not curl my hair, or very little, I did not even put anything
on my face, yet I was not the less vain of it; I very seldom looked
in the looking-glass, in order not to encourage my vanity, and I
made a practise of reading books of devotion, such as the "Imitation
of Jesus Christ" and the works of Saint Francis de Sales, while my
hair was being combed, so that as I read aloud the servants profited
by it. Moreover, I let myself be dressed as they wished, remaining
as they arranged me--a thing which saves trouble and material for
vanity.

I do not know how things were, but people always admired me, and the
feelings of my vanity reawakened in everything. If on certain days I
wished to look to better advantage, I failed, and the more I
neglected myself the better I looked. It was a great stone of
stumbling for me. How many times, O my God, have I gone to churches
less to pray to you than to be seen there! Other women who were
jealous of me maintained that I painted, and said so to my
confessor, who reproved me for it, although I assured him to the
contrary.

I often spoke to my own advantage, and I exalted myself with pride
while lowering others. I sometimes still told lies, though I used
all my effort to free myself from this vice.

I never spoke to a man alone, and never took one to my carriage
unless my husband was there. I never gave my hand without
precaution, and I never went into the carriages of men. In short,
there was no possible measure I did not observe to avoid any ground
for my being talked of.

* * * * *

So much precaution had I, O my God! for a vain point of honor, and I
had so little of true honor, which is not to displease you. I went
so far in this, and my self-love was so great, that if I had failed
in any rule of politeness, I could not sleep at night. Every one
wished to contribute to my diversion, and the outside life was only
too agreeable for me; but as to indoors, vexation had so depressed
my husband that each day I had to put up with something new, and
that very often.

Sometimes he threatened to throw the supper out of the window, and I
told him it would be very unfair to me--I had a good appetite.

* * * * *

It will be seen, from these frank outpourings of the heart, that Madame Guyon was suffering from an overwrought sex-nature.

Steeped in superstition, hypersthenia, God to her was a man--her lover.

Her one thought was to do His will. God is her ideal of all that is strong, powerful and farseeing. In her imagination she continually communicates with this all-powerful man. She calls Him "My Love," and occasionally forgetting herself addresses him as "Sir." She evades her husband, and deceives that worthy gentleman into believing she is asleep when she is all the time secretly praying to God. She goes to confession in a kimono. She gets up at daylight to go to mass, and this mass to her heated imagination is a tryst, and the fact that she can go to mass and get back safely and find her husband still sleeping adds the sweets of secrecy to her passion. In love the illicit seems the normal.

Her children are nothing to her, compared to this love, the ratio of a woman's love for her children having a direct relationship to the mother's love for their father. Madame Guyon's regard for her husband is covered by the word "duty," but to deceive the man never occurs to her as a fault. She prides herself on being an honest wife.

Of course her children turn from her, because she has turned from them. She thinks their ingratitude is a trial and a cross sent to her by God, just as she regards her husband's gout as a calamity for herself, never seemingly thinking of how it affects the gentleman himself. Simple people might say the gout was his affair, not hers, but she does not view it so. In her perverted selfness, all things have relationship to her own ego, and so she is in continual trouble, like a girl whose love is being opposed by parents and kinsmen.

A woman in love is the most unreasonable of all created things--next to a man. Reason is actually beyond a lover's orbit. This woman has lost the focus of truth, and all things are out of perspective. Every object is twisted and distorted by the one thought that fills her life. Lovers are fools, but Nature makes them so.

Here is a woman whose elective affinity is a being of her own creation--an airy, fairy fiction of the mind. When a living man appears upon the scene who in degree approximates her ideal of gentleness, strength and truth, how long, think you, will the citadel of her heart withstand the siege? Or will it be necessary for him to lay siege to her heart at all? Will she not straightway throw the silken net of her personality over him--this personality she affects to despise--and take him captive hand and foot? We shall see:

It was after this, my husband, having some relief from his continual
illness, wished to go to Orleans, and thence to Touraine. On this
journey my vanity triumphed, to disappear forever.

I received many visits and much applause. My God, how clearly I can
see the folly of men, who let themselves be caught by vain beauty! I
hated passion, but, according to the external man, I could not hate
that in me which called me into life, although, according to the
interior man, I ardently desired to be delivered from it. O my God,
you know how this continued combat of Nature and of Grace made me
suffer. Nature was pleased at public approbation, and Grace made it
feared. I felt myself torn asunder and as if separated from myself;
for I very well felt the injury this universal esteem did me. What
augmented it was the virtue they believed united with my youth and
my appearance. O my God, they did not know that all the virtue was
in you alone, and in your protection, and all the weakness in me.

I told the confessors of my trouble, because I had not my neck
entirely covered, although I was much better than the other women of
my age. They assured me that I was dressed very modestly, and that
there was no harm. My internal director told me quite the contrary,
but I had not the strength to follow him, and to dress myself, at my
age, in a manner that would appear extraordinary.

Besides, the vanity I had, furnished me with pretexts which appeared
to me the justest possible. Oh, if confessors knew the injury they
cause women by these soft complaisances, and the evil it produces,
they would show a greater severity; for if I had found a single
confessor who had told me there was harm in being as I was, I would
not have continued in it a single moment; but my vanity taking the
part of the confessors, made me think they were right and my
troubles were fanciful.

That maid of whom I spoke became every day more arrogant, and as the
Devil stirred her up to torment me, when she saw that her outcries
did not annoy me, she thought if she could hinder me from
communicating she would cause me the greatest of all annoyances. She
was quite right, O Divine Spouse of pure souls, since the only
satisfaction of my life was to receive you and to honor you. I
suffered a species of languor when I was some days without receiving
you. When I was unable, I contented myself with keeping some hours
near you, and, in order to have liberty for it, I applied myself to
perpetual adoration.

This maid knew my affection for the Holy Sacrament, before which,
when I could freely, I passed many hours on my knees.

She took care to watch every day she thought I communicated. She
came to tell my mother-in-law and my husband, who wanted nothing
more to get into a rage with me. There were reprimands which
continued the whole day.

If any word of justification escaped me, or any vexation at what
they said to me, it was ground enough for their saying that I
committed sacrilege, and crying out against devotion.

If I answered nothing, that increased their bitterness. They said
the most stinging things possible to me. If I fell ill, which
happened often enough, they took the opportunity to come and wrangle
with me in my bed, saying it was my communions and my prayers made
me ill--as if to receive you, O true Source of all good, could cause
any ill!

As it was with difficulty I ordinarily had any time for praying, in
order not to disobey my husband, who was unwilling I should rise
from bed before seven o'clock, I bethought me I had only to kneel
upon my bed.

I could not go to mass without the permission of my husband, for we
were very distant from all kind of churches; and as ordinarily he
only allowed me on festivals and Sundays, I could not communicate
but on those days, however desirous I might be for it; unless some
priest came to a chapel, which was a quarter of a league from our
house, and let us know of it. As the carriage could not be brought
out from the courtyard without being heard, I could not elude him. I
made an arrangement with the guardian of the Recolets, who was a
very holy man.

He pretended to go to say mass for somebody else, and sent a monk to
inform me. It had to be in the early morning, that my husband might
not know of it, and, although I had trouble in walking, I went a
quarter of a league on foot, because I dared not have the horses put
to the carriage for fear of awaking my husband. O my God, what a
desire did you not give me to receive you! and although my weariness
was extreme, all that was nothing to me. You performed miracles, O
my Lord, in order to further my desires; for besides that,
ordinarily on the days I went to hear mass, my husband woke later,
and thus I returned before his awaking: how many times have I set
out from the house in such threatening weather that the maid I took
with me said it would be out of the question for me to go on foot, I
should be soaked with rain. I answered her with my usual confidence,
"God will assist us"; and did I not arrive, O my Lord, without being
wetted? No sooner was I in the chapel than the rain fell in
torrents. The mass was no sooner finished than the rain ceased
entirely, and gave me time to return to the house, where,
immediately upon my arrival, it recommenced with greater violence.

* * * * *

The cross I felt most was to see my son revolt against me. I could
not see him without dying in grief. When I was in my room with any
of my friends, he was sent to listen to what I said; and as the
child saw it pleased them, he invented a hundred things to go and
tell them. What caused me the most pain was the loss of this child,
with whom I had taken extreme trouble. If I surprised him in a lie,
which often happened, I dared not reprove him. He told me, "My
grandmother says you are a greater liar than I!"

* * * * *

It was eight or nine months after I had the smallpox that Father La
Combe passed by the place of my residence. He came to the house,
bringing me a letter from Father La Mothe, who asked me to see him,
as he was a friend of his. I had much hesitation whether I should
see him, because I feared new acquaintances. However, the fear of
offending Father La Mothe led me to do it. This conversation, which
was short, made him desire to see me once more. I felt the same wish
on my side; for I believed he loved God, and I wished everybody to
love Him. God had already made use of me to win three monks. The
eagerness he had to see me again led him to come to our
country-house, which was only a half-league from the town.
Providence made use of a little accident that happened, to give me
the means of speaking to him; for as my husband, who greatly enjoyed
his cleverness, was conversing with him, he felt ill, and having
gone into the garden, my husband told me go look for him lest
anything might have occurred. I went there. This Father said that he
had remarked a concentration and such an extraordinary presence of
God on my countenance, that he said to himself, "I have never seen a
woman like that"; and this was what made him desire to see me again.
We conversed a little, and you permitted, O my God, that I said to
him things which opened to him the way of the interior. God bestowed
upon him so much grace, through this miserable channel, that he has
since declared to me he went away changed into another man.

I preserved a root of esteem for him, for it appeared to me that he
would be God's; but I was very far from foreseeing that I should
ever go to a place where he would be.

* * * * *

Some time after my arrival at Gex, the Bishop of Geneva came to see
us. I spoke to him with the impetuosity of the spirit that guided
me. He was so convinced of the spirit of God in me that he could not
refrain from saying so. He was even affected, and touched by it
opened his heart to me about what God desired of him, and how he had
been turned aside from fidelity and grace; for he is a good prelate,
and it is the greatest pity in the world that he is so weak in
allowing himself to be led by others. When I have spoken to him, he
always entered into what I said, acknowledging that what I said had
the character of truth; and this could not be otherwise, since it
was the spirit of truth that made me speak to him, without which I
was only a stupid creature; but as soon as the people who wished to
rule him and could not endure any good that did not come from
themselves, spoke to him, he allowed himself to be influenced
against the truth.

It is this weakness, joined to some others, which has hindered him
from doing all the good in his diocese that otherwise he would have
done. After I had spoken to him, he told me that he had it in mind
to give me as director Father La Combe; that he was a man
enlightened of God, who understood well the ways of the spirit, and
had a singular gift for calming souls--these are his own words--that
he had even told him, the Bishop, many things regarding himself,
which he knew to be very true, since he felt in himself what the
Father said to him.

I had great joy that the Bishop of Geneva gave him to me as
director, seeing that thereby the external authority was joined to
the grace which seemed already to have given him to me by that union
and effusion of supernatural grace.

As I was very weak, I could not raise myself in bed without falling
into a faint; and I could not remain in bed. The Sisters neglected
me utterly, particularly the one in charge of the housekeeping, who
did not give me what was necessary for my life. I had not a shilling
to provide for myself, for I had reserved nothing, and the Sisters
received all the money which came to me from France--a very large
sum. Thus I had the advantage of practising a little poverty, and
being in want with those to whom I had given everything.

They wrote to Father La Combe to come and take my confession. He
very charitably walked all night, although he had eight long
leagues; but he used always to travel so, imitating in this, as in
everything else, our Lord Jesus Christ.

As soon as he entered the house, without my knowing it, my pains
were alleviated. And when he came into my room and blessed me, with
his hands on my head, I was perfectly cured, and I evacuated all the
water, so that I was able to go to the mass. The doctors were so
surprised that they did not know how to account for my cure; for
being Protestants, they were unable to recognize a miracle. They
said it was madness, that my sickness was in the imagination, and a
hundred absurdities, such as might be expected from people otherwise
vexed by the knowledge that we had come to withdraw from error those
who were willing.

A violent cough, however, remained, and those Sisters of themselves
told me to go to my daughter, and take milk for a fortnight, after
which I might return. As soon as I set out, Father La Combe, who was
returning and was in the same boat, said to me, "Let your cough
cease."

It at once stopped, and although a furious gale came down upon the
lake which made me vomit, I coughed no more at all. This storm
became so violent that the waves were on the point of capsizing the
boat. Father La Combe made the sign of the cross over the waves, and
although the billows became more disturbed, they no longer came
near, but broke more than a foot distant from the boat--a fact
noticed by the boatmen and those in the boat, who looked upon him as
a saint. Thus I arrived at Thonon at the Ursulines, perfectly cured;
so instead of adopting remedies as I had proposed, I entered on a
retreat which I kept up for twelve days.

One of the Sisters I had brought, who was a very beautiful girl,
became connected with an ecclesiastic who had authority in this
place. He inspired her from the first with an aversion to me,
judging well that, if she had confidence in me, I would not advise
her to allow his frequent visits.

She undertook a retreat. I begged her not to enter on it until I was
there; for it was the time I was making my own. This ecclesiastic
was very glad to let her make it, in order to get entirely into her
confidence, for it would have served as a pretext for his frequent
visits. The Bishop of Geneva had assigned Father La Combe as
director of our House without my asking, so that it came purely from
God. I then begged this girl, as Father La Combe was to conduct the
retreat, she would wait for him. As I was already commencing to get
an influence over her mind, she yielded to me against her own
inclination, which was willing enough to make it under that
ecclesiastic. I began to speak to her of prayer, and to cause her to
offer it. Our Lord therein gave her such blessing that this girl, in
other respects very discreet, gave herself to God in earnest and
with all her heart. The retreat completed the victory. Now as she
apparently recognized that to connect herself with that ecclesiastic
was something imperfect, she was more reserved. This much displeased
the worthy ecclesiastic, and embittered him against Father La Combe
and me, and this was the source of all the persecutions that befell
me. The noise in my room ceased when that commenced. This
ecclesiastic, who heard confession in the House, no longer regarded
me with a good eye.